When the sequel to the Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen, continued to be pushed back and delayed on the PlayStation, there were doubts that the game was going to live up to what had been promised. However, when Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver finally was released in August of last year, all doubts were put to rest: the game had lived up to the hype. In the end, when it came down to critique the game in a review, I found that I enjoyed the game enough to give it one of Gaming Age's highest review scores, an A-. As good as the game was, though, there were a few problems that hurt the game - to an extent. The frame rate had a hard time keeping up to speed at certain times, and there was an abuse of the fog feature to cover up the fact that the game's environments were a bit to ambitious for the PlayStation.
Since LoK: Soul Reaver's release on the PlayStation, Eidos Interactive has come to support Sega's next-generation platform, the Dreamcast, extensively. Along with Fighting Force 2 on the console, Eidos Interactive had pledged to develop an enhanced version of LoK: Soul Reaver, as well. As long as nothing drastic was to go wrong, thanks to the more powerful hardware backing up the Dreamcast, all the problems that plagued the PlayStation title would be fixed in the Dreamcast release; right? Right! And thankfully, that is what has exactly taken place.
Here's a brief recap of the story line, if for some odd reason you don't know it quite yet. In a world where vampires rule the land and humans run amok the world attempting to survive the vampiric chaos, there is a one central leader, Kain, and a series of clans that are each ruled by one head vampire. As time passes, Kain will evolve and a new feature will grow unto his body, and the clan leaders will follow with similar features later on. Somehow, though, one of the clan leaders, Raziel, surpasses his master and earns the right to fly through the use of wings. When he presents his master with his evolution, Kain becomes enraged and rips Raziel's wings to shreds.
As punishment for evolving before Kain, Raziel is tossed into a terrible abyss of water that burns and slowly eats away at his skin. Years later, Raziel is awakened by the Elder and is told that the turmoil that has taken control of the land. Unless something is done soon, all will be lost. In its current state, the Elder is unable to allow the dead to continue in their journey to the afterlife, and so Raziel is sent on a mission to set things right, along with satisfying his need for revenge against his former master.
Mentioned earlier was the fact that one of the few of the PlayStation game's faults was that the game worlds were a bit too ambitious for the machine. Thus it couldn't handle a stable frame rate in certain areas. And to even out the score a bit in the largest of sections, patches of thick fog had been included, though most of the time it seemed more like an environmental effect, rather than a way to hide the game's engine problems. On the Dreamcast, though, I am extremely happy to report that all of these problems have been completely erased. Running at a constant 60 frames per second, there was only one or two moments where I found a bit of slowdown taking place, but even then it was remedied within a moment or two. Additionally, the fog has been reduced substantially and it is completely obvious that it is now utilized purely as an environmental effect.
Not only did Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Interactive go and speed up the frame rate, bump up the resolution and remove massive amounts of fog, but many of the game's models had their polygon numbers upped a few notches. Comparing the PlayStation and Dreamcast versions, it is easy to see that there is a difference between the two (with the Dreamcast game obviously being much better), but they aren't as different as, say, night and day. Nevertheless, the models still look spectacular, and are enhanced to look many times superior thanks to the added special effects that the Dreamcast can use, and the PlayStation was unable to accomplish.
Moving past the fact that LoK: Soul Reaver will leave your jaw on the ground most of the time you play it, the game keeps up to the standards that the graphics have set in almost all areas. The control is dead on most of the time, but I did find that I had trouble aiming where to toss enemy characters that I had picked up after dizzying them. For some odd reason, the game does not allow you to simply walk forward, and you have to struggle moving forward while drifting to the left and right and attempting to aim the creature you are carrying in the direction that is needed. Also, the abundance of block moving puzzles still exists, and is just as annoying, but none of them are going to annoy to the extent of pulling the hair out of your skull.
Other than what has already been mentioned, the only complaint I could possibly find with LoK: Soul Reaver on the Dreamcast is that at times the 3rd person perspective camera can zoom in too close to Raziel, and this can affect gameplay the most when having to direct him toward a platform after making a leap and gliding down. Every once and a while I would end up missing the platform and having to work my way back up to that point again.
Though there are some slight issues about LoK: Soul Reaver, I cannot express enough how well done the game is. Featuring all the great gameplay found in the original, plus an assortment of graphical upgrades that fix most of the shortcomings on the PlayStation, the Dreamcast game is an epic adventure that no Dreamcast owner should miss. Whilst some may complain about the lack of closure in the game's ending, this shouldn't stop you from picking this up. Don't miss this game, because you'll regret it if you do.
-- Patrick Klepek
